Slants on Sports

It is only a fortnight ago since Helen Jacobs romped off with the tennis honors that earned her permanent possession of the cup symbolizing victory on the Forest Hills courts for three years. At the time we said that proportionately there was a fair representation of Jewish women entered in the women’s national tennis matches.

At present the outstanding racket stars of the country and the ranking players of England, Czechoslovakia and Australia are hotly contending Fred Perry’s supremacy. Among the performers who hope to dethrone the king of the United States tennis realms from his lofty pinnacle are seven Jewish men who have proved in tournaments during the year that they stand a chance to come through. At least if the championship is not forthcoming an upset may be scored by any one of them.

Baroness Maud Levi scored the greatest reversal of form when she set back Miss Betty Nuthall, ranking woman player of England, and it is our contention that several of the men may do the same during the course of the week.

Bernard Friedman, captain of the Lavender racket team; Marco Hecht, who ranked eighteenth in the men’s rating for 1933; David Geller, thirty-first in the listings, and Henry Prusoff, of Seattle, are but four of the seven Jewish stars who may procure an upset that will startle the tennis world as much as Baroness Levi’s setback to Miss Nuthall did.

Henry Prusoff was first heard of in these columns when he won the Tri-State singles championship at Cincinatti early in the summer. Prusoff is a fast-paced rangy man and ranks number one in the Pacific Northwest rating. He captured two titles east of the Mississippi in one week in his very first tour of competition in the East. He was also crowned Ohio State champion.

FOOTBALL GRIND BEGINS TOMORROW

Although the pushover and the easy games for most of the colleges and universities that boast good football teams do not begin for three weeks or so, nearly all of the schools begin their yearly training grind this morning.

The good old Beavers from City College, the Violet machine, the Columbia Rose Bowl Lions and Brooklyn College, all with a “minyen” of Jewish gridders on the squads begin practice today for the hectic fall grind. At least Benny Friedman’s hunch of raring tigers are led by a Jewish captain. He is Hy Rosner. In all probabilities Hy will call signals for the Beavers this year.

Charlie Siegal, the boy from N. Y. U. who speared that unforgettable forward pass tossed to him by his running mate, Eddie Smith, and thereby beating Carnegie Tech (incidentally C. T. was the eleven that took Notre Dame), is still back with the Heights warriors. However, he will have to call signals under another system than was in effect last year. N. Y. U. is run by Mal Stevens of Yale.

THE BIG FIGHT THURSDAY NIGHT

This Thursday night Barney Ross will re-enact the little play which he performed before 60,000 of New York’s most ardent Jewish and Irish boxing fans. As before, Jimmy McLarnin will be in the chief supporting role. However, there will be one little difference that the spectators will observe. Barney Ross will enter the ring as the champion whereas the last time he ducked through the ropes at the Madison Square Garden Bowl he was the challenger.

Then again, a new finale was written for this fifteen-act play. At the end of the last fight the champion went down to defeat and the winnah and new champion took the third crown of his career. At the end of this bout Barney will still be the holder of junior lightweight, the lightweight and the welterweight championships of the world.

This fight is being held for the benefit of the New York American Christmas relief fund and will appeal to the sport enthusiasts the same way that a milk fund special does.

Also, on the same bill, the fans will see the stablemate and protege of Barney in action against one of Jimmy McLarnin’s favorite pets. Day toured the Mid-West along with Ross when the latter went into the four-a-day circuit for some extra pocket change. Davey Day is an up and coming fighter and will be heard from in a year or two.

However, folks, we’ll have plenty to say on this coming fight in our Wednesday column. As we did before the last Ross-McLarnin scrap we visited the training camps of both fighters and came back with last-minute observations of the two principal actors.

A FALLSBURGH FLASH

Jack Schneiderman, the golf pro of the Flagler Country Club, who couldn’t get time off to enter the contest in New York run by a metropolitan daily for golfers who could score a hole-in-one, actually scored an ace the other day. In an exhibition contest with Buddy Walker on the links of the Flagler, he scored his hole-in-one and defeated Walker.

Schneiderman carded a score of sixty-three, well below par, and thereby won a silver loving cup donated by the directors of the country club.

Well, now we can boast of another Jewish golf pro who has the stuff and is coming along. The other good pro golfer is Herman Barron, whom we mentioned a week or so ago.

AMERICAN YOUTH CONGRESS CALLS FOR OLYMPIC BOYCOTT

One week after Avery Brundage, head of the Amateur Athletic Union and the American Olympic Committee, stated that he would approve American participation in the 1936 Nazi Olympics, 150 delegates representing seventy-nine organizations at the First American Youth Congress, held at N. Y. U. went on record as opposed to such participation by an American Olympic team. The organizations that went on record have a combined membership of 1,700,000 people.

The resolution opposing the Olympics, offered by the delegate of the Labor Sports Union of America and unanimously accepted by the Congress, demands that the American Olympic Committee withdraw its acceptance of the bid of the Hitler Olympic Committee, and calls upon the athletes to boycott preparations for the Olympic games. It was incorporated into the main resolution against war and fascism.

THE SPORTING CALENDAR FORT HAMILTON ARENA, WRESTLING TONIGHT

Tor Johnson, heavyweight champion wrestler of Sweden, will wrestle Tiny Morgan, in one of the thirty-minute exhibitions at the Fort Hamilton Army Reservation, tomorrow night. This will be the first appearance of the Swedish champ in America. Johnson weighs three hundred and five pounds and Tiny tips the scales at three hundred even.

Dick Shikat and Floyd Marshall will go to the mat in the feature finish attraction. The forty-five minute semi-final will present Garibaldi and Joe Dusek. Sandor Szabo tackles Emil Dusek and Jack Washburn will grunt and groan with George Hagen.

CONEY ISLAND VELODROME—TONIGHT

Nat Suess of Brownsville who has scored twenty-seven consecutive knockouts meets Jerry Mazza of Dyker Heights who fought Pete DeGrasse to a standstill in his last start at the Coney Island Velodrome tonight. The evening’s program will be further garnished by thirty-eight rounds of six-round and four-round bouts.